The slashed canvas of a defaced painting is an insult to civilization, to beauty, to art. For a painter, seeing a pile of dirty canvases on the floor, cut by jihadist daggers in the name of iconoclastic fury, is a deep wound, an irreparable tear to their world. This is where the story of Matti al-Kanun begins. Al-Kanun is an artist of 74 years of age.

He belongs to the Syriac Christian community of Bartella, a city east of
Mosul. Like hundreds of thousands Christian, Yazidis, Shi’a Shabaks,
Sunni Muslims, Kurds, Turks… he and his family fled the violence that
since 2014 has been wreaking havoc upon northern Iraq. Emanuele
Confortin met Matti al-Kanun in March of 2017. The Iraqi artist told him
something that they would work together on: “I want my paintings back
to fix them, to sew back those tears, to resist war and violence. I want
to go back to life.”

The salvaged paintings by al-Kanun will be in
Venice, at San Servolo Island, from March 16 to April 7. Reports by
Emanuele Confortin complement the exhibition. Back to Life in Iraq is
the testimony of al-Kanun and his family, and that of many, too many,
other families.

«Back to Life in Iraq. Arte, distruzione, rinascita»
From 16 March to 7 April 2018